


Personal Effects

by remi_wolf



Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Gun Violence, Gunpowder Tim vs. The Moon Kaiser, Hurt No Comfort, Military Backstory
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-02-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:48:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22945780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/remi_wolf/pseuds/remi_wolf
Summary: Over the course of a single lifetime, people collect little trinkets, things to remind them of the past, bits and bobs to hold close to their hearts. Given millennia and a propensity to leave entire planets behind as charred wrecks, even the Mechanisms have their little trinkets, no matter what they try to claim. Everyone has something that ties them to their humanity and their pasts.
Relationships: Bertie & The Toy Soldier, Gunpowder Tim & Bertie
Comments: 6
Kudos: 49
Collections: Beguilements and Distractions





	Personal Effects

“The fuck is this?”

“Looks like...some sort of sleeping bag?”

Jonny growls as he looks up at Marius, peering over the walkway above, and he barely keeps himself from shooting Marius in his head. “I know what it--”

“Well you asked!”

“Fuck you too, von Raum. Just. TIM. TOY SOLDIER?”

“What are you shouting about this time?”

“Are We Playing Tag Again?”

Jonny held up the bag, looking between the two of them. While the Toy Soldier couldn’t visibly respond terribly well, Tim could, and the way he turned whiter than the neutron star they passed by not long ago meant that it wasn’t his, and so Jonny turned his anger on the Toy Soldier instead. 

“Is this your fucking lead sheet?”

The Toy Soldier at least had the decency to look a little bit ashamed, or at least pretend to, and they held a hand out. “I’m Sorry I Let You Take It. Orders Are To Never Let Someone Else Take It Away.”

Jonny’s eyes widened, and the lead sheet dropped, hand immediately flying to his gun. Before his pistol had left the holster, though, the Toy Soldier was already falling to the ground, momentarily killed by Tim’s gun instead. Their eyes met, and Jonny knew exactly where Tim was. Mostly because he felt himself slipping to those awful memories as well.

* * *

“Come _on_ , Bertie, move!”

“My pack’s caught, Tim. Honestly, just keep moving.”

Jonny groans before cutting the strap of Bertie’s bag with his bayonet and pushing them further ahead. He could hear the clanking of the boots behind them, the metal heels striking the floor with every precise marching step towards them. The world might be pitch black, but the human and human-adjacent body was remarkably adaptable, and the echoes of the footfalls made it easy to know exactly where their approaching doom was coming from. 

Well, Bertie and Tim’s. 

Jonny hadn’t seen Carmilla in years at this point, otherwise he would have begged her to fix them as well, even if nothing was objectively wrong with them right now. 

Pulling the pack along with him, Jonny started pushing Bertie and Tim ahead, turning back as they ducked down one corridor that would just barely fit them. Hopefully it wouldn’t trap them, but at least it would be away from the bayonets and guns. The kaiser's men were coming at them quickly, and while he was able to shoot a few of them down, the muzzle flash only illuminated the microwave canon they were dragging behind him. 

“Lamps, boys, Toy Soldier. They know where we are, and they’ve got a microwave gun back there. Lead sheets now, rather than waiting for it to hit us.” Jonny throws the pack after the orders, watching as the other three in front of him lit their headlamps, and they took a proper look at the damage to their packs from the wire they had passed through. 

Toy Soldier, well, it’s pack looked pristine, as though it had picked it up from a dead soldier on the other side of the wire. Jonny was fine. Scratches on his arms that were already healing as he tugged on a clean jacket that would hide it from Bertie and Tim. Tim’s backpack was shredded, but the important things were safe and sound. Bertie, however. 

Bertie was not pristine, he was not fine, and the important things were not safe and sound. Along the side of his tightly-rolled lead sheet, there was a long gash. And the alarms back in the main tunnel were already blaring, echoing down the crevice they had shoved themselves into. 

“We can keep running.”

“First Mate—”

“Captain!”

“You’re just a sergeant, Jonny!” Tim’s voice cut off Jonny’s annoyed correction, turning the beam of yellow light towards the Toy Soldier. “TS, what are you trying to say?”

“We Have Seemed To Have Found a Dead End. It’s A Rather Lovely Cave To Hide In From The Soldiers.”

Jonny felt himself blanche, the stomach dropping out from under him as he looked around, and up, and back at the narrow tunnel they had barely fit into. Of course they had. And there was a microwave canon that was probably being shoved down this way to kill them. They had five minutes, if they were lucky. 

“Tim, get into your lead sheet. Toy Soldier, give yours to Bertie. Station twenty feet towards the front of this tunnel, and keep anyone from getting past you.” Jonny was pulling out his own lead sheet, unrolling it and already starting to open it up. Thank god Tim was already following the order without a second thought. He could already hear the sound of fasteners tightening on Tim’s sheet, making sure he’d be locked in for the next eight hours. When there wasn’t the second one, he looked up, seeing Bertie’s furious face staring down at him.

“TS will _die_ , Jonny. I can’t let you kill him, just because he—”

“It.”

Bertie rolled his eyes as he looked at Jonny before pushing the offered lead sheet from the Toy Soldier towards it. “You’re a dick sometimes, Jonny. Honestly, TS is going to die without the sheet.”

“And so will you, Bertie!” Jonny couldn’t help but snap at Bertie, looking at the yellow-tinged figure, wishing he could remember what the boy’s face looked like in proper white light. Was his hair blond? Or ginger? Brown?

The two of them stared at each other before they heard the sirens start to blare down at the main chamber. The microwave gun was charging. 90 seconds. They stared at each other for a moment, listening as Tim shifted in the lead sheet, struggling against the fasteners as he could hear the argument outside. 

75 seconds. 

“TS. Never give your sheet to someone else. Keep it on your person at all times. Put your lead sheet on,” Bertie said, glaring at Jonny as he started the order before glaring at the Toy Soldier. It quickly saluted, and Jonny’s eyes widened. 

“Toy Soldier, don’t you _dare_ , I am your _Captain_!”

“Sergeant, Jonny. Get that fucking sheet on, TS.”

The Toy Soldier put the lead sheet on. One sheet left. And they’d be sitting ducks in this corridor.

45 seconds. 

Jonny had one chance, and he practically tackled Bertie, trying to get the lead sheet over him enough to start the fastening system. 

Bertie was always taller than him, though, and while he was a fraction of the age of Jonny, had grown up fighting with the best of them. It also helped that he wasn’t stuck constantly resetting at 19 with every stray bullet in the battlefield. 

The fight didn’t take long. Bertie managed to catch a good hit to Jonny’s temple, stunning him momentarily. The moment was all that Bertie needed, and Jonny found himself starting to get bound tight by the lead sheet. Tim was screaming, and he was screaming. 

It took thirty seconds to get a lead sheet closed. They tried to make it shorter, but it never worked. 

It didn’t matter, though. He had just thirty seconds, and he could feel himself screaming as he tried to claw out of the sheet. However, if it were so easy to claw in or out of the lead sheets, then they would have been deemed useless and worthless a long time ago, and so Jonny had to listen to Bertie scream until he died, and Tim scream until something in his voice broke and it just turned to sobs instead.

At least the Toy Soldier was quiet.

At least he screamed himself hoarse and passed out at some point in the night.

Why did young boys at war always have to die?

Why Bertie?

Why?

He heard the faint hiss as the sheet opened up, and he opened his eyes, flipping the light of his headlamp on before crawling out of the sheet. 

Bertie’s corpse was there, cooked through. Untouched, though. Tim’s sheet was empty. 

“Where’s Tim?”

“Oh, He Left Already. Told Me To Tell You, ‘Fuck Off’ If You Surived. And You Did! I’m So Glad To See That.”

“I would have survived regardless, Toy Soldier.”

Jonny looked at Bertie’s body for a few moments before sighing, and sitting down next to it.

* * *

The memories came in a flash, and then he was back, and Jonny only had enough time to look up at Tim before opening his mouth for an apology, one of his constant apologies, just to receive a bullet to the head for his troubles. 

Fuck, that hurt. 

Hurt less than getting Bertie killed. 

He should have told them.

He should…

He…

…

**Author's Note:**

> This. um. This came out much darker than I originally anticipated? Like. Ugh. I originally planned for there to be /some/ sort of happy flash for it, but, unfortunately not. All angst, no happy ending or happy moment at all in it. Just how I see Bertie having died during the Moon Kaiser's awful war. Jonny never told them he was immortal, just because he never got to it, despite being in a relationship of sorts with them, and Bertie and Tim never realized that the Toy Soldier was just made out of wood. So. Yeah. Bertie died in vain trying to save someone who didn't need saving, because he was too good of a person.  
> And Tim goes insane and on his bloody rampage.  
> And Jonny may or may not eat Bertie's body in a weird attempt to keep him close.


End file.
